The Bone Man

by Wolf Haas

  And then he had to think about Helene Jurasic yet again. And then about Milovanovic. And then about Löschenkohl junior, who’d loaned him his Porsche. And then about the waitress. And then about old man Löschenkohl. And then, for the fifth or sixth time already this night, he got up. And saw that it was still pitch-black outside. And then he made himself earplugs out of toilet paper so that he wouldn’t have to hear the squeal of the bone-grinder.

  And then he thought, why should the bone-grinder even be squealing day and night anyway? And then he thought—because when you’re lying awake at night, you often think of every possible thing, things that would never occur to you during the day—now that Milovanovic hasn’t run the bone-grinder in nearly two weeks, how tall the mounds of bones must be that are piling up around the basement.

  And then he didn’t stuff the toilet-paper plugs into his ears. He got so curious all of a sudden about what it must look like down in the bone cellar that he got dressed and went downstairs to the bone cellar.

  He thought, better not turn any lights on in the hall, you never know what good that’ll do. And he noticed that, in the dark, sounds are much louder. And the sound of the bone-grinder was getting louder with every step that Brenner took in the direction of the bone chamber. And then, of course, huge surprise.

  Because the door to the bone chamber was locked. That wasn’t the surprise, though, no—there was no noise coming from behind the door. No squealing, no nothing.

  Now where did the squealing disappear to? If I can hear the bone-grinder up in my room, but I can’t hear it down here, how many possible explanations are there? Either, someone turned the machine off while I was coming down here. And this someone is perhaps waiting behind a curtain for me, with a butcher knife. But here in the basement, not a curtain in sight.

  Or, the squeal that I’ve been hearing from my room this whole time hasn’t been the bone-grinder at all.

  Then, Brenner heard the squealing again. But from the opposite direction. And then he searched for where the squeal was coming from.

  He walked back down the hall, but the squealing was everywhere and nowhere. He thought about whether he should wake up the bathroom attendant and ask her where the squealing came from. But, yesterday, out of concern for her son, the bathroom attendant had gone to her sister’s in Bad Reichenhall.

  The bathroom attendant’s gone, and her son’s gone, and the waitress is gone, Brenner thought, while in the half-dark he listened at the different doors in the basement. He even listened at every door of every single bathroom stall, and listened especially, of course, at the door to the bathroom stall that disguised the bathroom attendant’s apartment. And then he opened the stall door and listened at the apartment door. And tried the apartment door to see if it was open.

  But, naturally, the apartment was locked. And then, Brenner forced it open. And then, he discovered that the squealing wasn’t coming from there, either.

  So, back out of the apartment and out to the broom closet that was between the bone chamber and the women’s bathroom. Now, if I could break into the apartment, then surely I can break into the broom closet, too. And then he noticed that the broom closet had a steel door. And he wondered, since when do broom closets have steel doors?

  He went back into the bathroom attendant’s apartment now and listened at the wall adjacent to the broom closet. When he placed his ear against the wall, it vibrated so much that his migraine-addled skull got one hell of a massage. And then, Brenner—immediate action.

  He didn’t have time for the stairs anymore. No, he climbed right up and through the window of the basement apartment and out into the fresh air. And once there, he saw that he’d guessed correctly. The broom closet had a basement window exactly like the bathroom attendant’s apartment did.

  It struck him just how early the dawn comes at this time of year. Even though it was still completely dark. But already you could feel it, any moment now, dawn would break. Even in the light of day, though, he wouldn’t have been able to see anything through the window because it was glued shut from the inside. And state-of-the-art, burglar-proof glass. A one-hundred-fifty-kilo man could take a running leap, and at most, the one-hundred-fifty-kilo man would shatter into a thousand pieces, but the glass still wouldn’t budge.

  And then Brenner ran over to the Porsche and got the steering-wheel lock. By this point, dawn was so heavily in the air—you could’ve grabbed hold of it.

  And then, as though on command, the birds began to chirp. Brenner couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever heard a racket like this. Until the explosion of glass, that is, when he thrashed the wheel lock into the window.

  As he climbed down through the window, Brenner could see less than nothing. But he could feel the dreadful cold of the walk-in freezer. The walls felt icy to the touch, like the igloo he’d built a hundred years ago. And then he found the light switch. And then: good night.

  He recognized Löschenkohl’s daughter-in-law right away. She still bore a strong resemblance to her sister. Even though only half of her was there. It was only on closer inspection that he was able to recognize Art Collector Marko, even though he was completely unscathed, lying there in his refrigerator case. Brenner had really only seen him briefly that once, though, when he’d said to Brenner at the gallery in Graz: “I pray you’re right. But I’d wager you’re wrong.”

  That was two days ago. But it seemed like a different life to Brenner now. And needless to say, it really was a different life for Art Collector Marko.

  And then Brenner discovered a third corpse. It was lying on its stomach, but in spite of this, very simple identification. Because Ortovic didn’t have any head on. And a moment later, Brenner could feel the steel door opening behind him.

  Old man Löschenkohl was wearing the elegant burgundy pajamas that his daughter-in-law had given him on his sixty-fifth birthday. He took just one, two steps toward Brenner and asked him what it was that he was looking for here.

  But Brenner couldn’t muster a word. Maybe you’re familiar with those meat cleavers that you only have to sidle up to a pig with and it splits in two. Well, old man Löschenkohl was trying to sidle up to Brenner a little now.

  And how should I put it—he succeeded. Brenner hopped aside so nimbly that I have to say, at forty-five, an accomplishment. These days, though, if you find yourself faced with the choice—off with the head or quick leap—then you take the quick leap, forty-five or not.

  But maybe you don’t do it quite as nimbly as someone younger might. And that turned out to be why Brenner didn’t pull his left hand away fast enough. The cleaver came crashing down onto the butcher block, right where Brenner’s left hand pushed off from as he took his life-saving leap. Talk about luck—the old man only hacked off a pinky finger.

  Hurt, it did not, but needless to say, no pleasure, either. And on top of it all, Brenner was now stuck in the corner. And it’s so easy to say, backed into a corner, figure of speech, but when you’re actually backed into a corner, it’s something else altogether. The old man was standing—meat cleaver in hand—between Brenner and the door. And the small window hatch: six feet high. Brenner was, in fact, twenty years younger than old man Löschenkohl. It goes without saying, though, when there’s a meat cleaver in somebody’s hand, age is relative.

  And the old man raised the meat cleaver up over his head again. In this instant, and for the second time this morning, Brenner was struck by how unbearably loudly the birds were singing outside.

  Because nowadays, when your life is coming to a close, it’s the insignificant details that catch your attention. And while the meat cleaver was diving down toward his square skull, Brenner was distinguishing between the good-morning songs of the wagtail, nuthatch, and warbler. Because Brenner had a grade school teacher back in Puntigam who taught them to differentiate between the various birdsongs, and this was what came to mind now as old man Löschenkohl was thrashing the meat cleaver down upon him.

  But Brenner heaved himself out of the wa
y again. Although it begs asking here: what sort of sense does that make? Whether he splits you on the second or the third attempt makes no real difference. But in a moment like this, of course, it’s purely the instincts reacting.

  The cleaver sank so deeply into the butcher block that the old man almost couldn’t get it back out. In retrospect, it’s easy to say, those two seconds that it took the old man to get the cleaver out of the butcher block, that was Brenner’s chance, when he should have overpowered him. But when you’re lying in a walk-in freezer with only nine fingers, well, the matter looks a bit different. That’s the only way I can explain it: Brenner’s just lying there on his chopping block, and his mind’s somewhere else entirely.

  Not what you’re thinking, though, life flashing before his eyes. Because that’s what it always seems to mean when you’re looking death in the eye, your whole life quickly replays itself in a second: kindergarten, school, driver’s license, the gradual dulling of your mind—all of it in one to two seconds like in a movie. But none of that, I’m telling you, was what was flashing in front of Brenner’s eyes in those two seconds before Löschenkohl had the cleaver back up in the air again.

  Because as soon as a person’s closed the curtains on his life, he often gets a little wiser and more relaxed than in all the years he spent desperately clinging to his chunk of a life. And it was in this state that Brenner started connecting the dots in a way that he definitely wouldn’t have been able to in all those years of desperation.

  A wonderful feeling actually, I’ve got to say, when a terribly complicated mess solves itself all of a sudden. For Brenner, it was truly uplifting to understand it all so effortlessly in this relaxed state. Where normally a person would make too much of an effort, and precisely because of that, not understand.

  In the two seconds that it took the old man to tear the cleaver out of the butcher block, what Helene Jurasic had told Brenner a few hours ago went running through his head again. That old man Löschenkohl didn’t demand any real service in return for his millions. Brenner could hear her voice so clearly now that you might’ve thought she was looking down from the smashed-in window and telling him the whole story again from up there.

  How old man Löschenkohl would often come to her several times a week. And how he never asked anything of her. Except that she kneel before him and eat a bank roll of thousands. And how Helene Jurasic, in not even one year, had devoured Löschenkohl’s entire fortune. It was all going through Brenner’s head again now, while the old man struggled to pull his cleaver out of the butcher block.

  Brenner understood now, too, that it had been Horvath’s lifelong dream to return as an ordinary waitress to East Styria. And these days, when your lifelong dream’s at stake, then you don’t just give up on it because of some slimy soldier recruiter. Besides, Horvath could understand why his boss, who’d got sent off to war himself at the age of sixteen, would make mincemeat out of the recruiter. And it was all just an unconfirmed suspicion anyway. And so, Horvath simply didn’t want to know for certain, and after that initial suspicion, never tried the fried pieces of meat again, but from that point on, sustained himself only on frankfurters. This, too, was going through Brenner’s head, as the old man gripped the front of the cleaver blade with his left hand so that it’d be easier to pull it out of the butcher block.

  In his relaxed state, it became clear to Brenner, too, that from the very beginning it hadn’t been the bone-grinder squealing beneath his window, but the walk-in freezer. And clear why Löschenkohl’s daughter-in-law had disappeared the very day she called Brenner. And that she’d had to die because she suspected something. A correct suspicion, alas. This is what was running through Brenner’s head—instead of his life flashing before his eyes—in those two seconds that he still had before Löschenkohl yanked the cleaver out of the butcher block.

  Because it simply wasn’t true that the recruiter—who’d been given his walking papers so zealously by the old man six months ago—never showed up at Löschenkohl’s again. He just wasn’t recognizable anymore by the time the health inspectors picked him out of the bone-grinder. And when Rubber Manufacturer Marko was screaming at the waitress that he knew whose bones they were, old man Löschenkohl had to act fast, of course. Because Marko was a war profiteer himself, and he knew for a fact that the army recruiter had disappeared overnight.

  Interesting, though, that a murderer can make so many mistakes, and nevertheless, can go uncaught for so long—this, too, was running through Brenner’s head now. Because he didn’t dispose of the recruiter’s bones very carefully. And then he wasn’t very successful with his daughter-in-law after she’d ordered the detective to his house.

  And when he carved up Blackmailer Ortovic, he thought that, by depositing the head at the soccer club, he could shift suspicion onto Milovanovic, who’d just disappeared, but he failed to reckon with Milovanovic. This, too, was still racing through Brenner’s head in the seconds before the old man finally tore the cleaver out of the block and raised it up over his head again.

  Interesting, though! His headache had magically disappeared now that the old man was two feet away and aiming right for his skull.

  And you see, that’s why I always say, you should never give up hope in this life. Old saying, just when you think it can’t get any worse, a beam of light—the light-beam’s only meant symbolically, though. Because in Brenner’s case, a beam of light would’ve been all wrong. Because a beam of light would’ve just presented Brenner’s head on a platter to old man Löschenkohl. And this, now, really interesting: the beam of light of hope for Brenner was that somebody had turned off the light in the freezer.

  “Put the cleaver down, Father.”

  Brenner could barely see Löschenkohl junior in the darkness. But he recognized his voice right away.

  “And come out now,” Paul said to his father.

  The old man listened to his son without protest. Paul turned the light back on now and asked Brenner, “Are you missing anything?”

  “My finger.”

  “That can be sewed back on,” Paul said. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

  “Where exactly did you come from?” Brenner asked.

  “From Little Joe’s. I wanted to pick up my car.”

  “If you want to loan me your car one more time, I won’t be needing an ambulance.”

  “The way I see it,” Paul said. And then he must have gone into shock, because in one glance, he took in his dead wife and the two other bodies in the freezer as if they were perfectly normal chicken and pig carcasses. And then he went upstairs with his father.

  “Or you can call me an ambulance,” Brenner said.

  “It’s fine,” Paul said. He looked as if he’d grown up overnight.

  And Brenner, too, very calm, as if this wasn’t about his own finger at all. And to him, it really wasn’t about his finger, because he said to Paul now: “Do you know Manufacturer Marko, the art collector?”

  “Yeah, him there by my wife.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “Lived. In St. Martin. The old farmhouse on the edge of town.”

  “Exactly. Send my ambulance there.”

  “Why not here?”

  But Brenner was already hurrying past Paul and his father, with his finger in one hand and the keys to the Porsche in the other. He ran quickly into the kitchen and bundled his finger in the plastic wrap that’s normally used for freeze-packing meat.

  Then he got a few ice cubes out of the refrigerator, and put the ice cubes into a bag together with his shrink-wrapped finger. Because first aid, needless to say, always a class about that on the force, and so Brenner knew exactly what he had to do to keep his finger fresh so that it could be sewed back on later.

  Then he was in the Porsche, and the steering wheel—instantly smeared with blood, of course, but what can you do.

  When Brenner got to the intersection, he could already see a blue flashing light approaching from the left. He waited until the ambulance that
was racing up from Radkersburg had passed him, and then he followed it.

  Now, maybe it was because of his injury or because the ambulance was already driving so fast, but it was only by the skin of the Porsche’s teeth that Brenner could keep up with the ambulance. He was surprised that the ambulance drove with its blue flashing lights on the whole time because there wasn’t another car near or far, and so the blue flashing lights really weren’t necessary. Needless to say, the volunteers get a kick out of being able to follow emergency response protocol.

  And then, they even turned on the sirens. At four-thirty in the morning! But Brenner didn’t have time to worry about disrupting Styria’s sleep. Because the ambulance was accelerating now. He didn’t let it shake him off, though. No, a certain ambition awoke in him, and he thought, I’m not placing myself in the hands of a couple of Radkersburg volunteers.

  Then, the signs for St. Martin—speed limit through town’s fifty, but the ambulance and Brenner blew through St. Martin at one-hundred-fifty. And then, finally, at the very edge of town, Rubber Manufacturer Marko’s farmhouse.

  And then, the ambulance stopped, and then, Brenner stopped, and then, the ambulance doors sprang open, left and right at the same time, and two people in uniforms hopped out—you would’ve thought they were riot police.

  And then a thunderstorm, just awful, or, to be more specific, it went down like this: when the ambulance driver jumped out of his vehicle, he seemed familiar to Brenner right away. And no wonder, because it was Franz Tecka, the middle-striker on FC Klöch. A bolt of a man, nearly as tall as old man Löschenkohl, nearly as wide as Brenner. His father was a carpenter’s assistant, his grandfather was a carpenter’s assistant, and his great-grandfather was a carpenter’s assistant. And what was Franz Tecka? Secretary at a warehouse.

  Because, his father said, my boy should have it better, so Franz went to business school, and now, a job sitting at a computer. Energy like a steer, but all day long, only moves his fingers, so where does the energy go?